Part 45 (1/2)
”The nest was placed in a small but very dense gra.s.s-tuft about a foot above the ground. It was made entirely of coa.r.s.e gra.s.ses, and a.s.similated well with the dry and entangled stems among which it lay.
The nest was very deep and purse-shaped. It was about 8 inches in total height at the back, and some 2 inches lower in front, the upper part of the purse being as it were cut off slantingly, and thus leaving an entrance which was more or less circular. The width is 6 inches, and the breadth from front to back 4 inches. The interior is smooth, lined with somewhat finer gra.s.s, and measures 4 inches in depth by 3 inches from side to side, and by 2 inches from front to back.
”_Megalurus pal.u.s.tris_ is very common throughout the large plains lying between the Pegu and Sittang Rivers. At the end of May they were all breeding. The nest is, however, difficult to find, owing to the vast extent of favourable ground suited to its habits. Every yard of the land produces a clump of gra.s.s likely enough to hold a nest, and as the female sits still till the nest is actually touched, it becomes a difficult and laborious task to find the nest.”
He subsequently remarks:--”May seems to be the month in which these birds lay here. The nest is very often placed on the ground under the shelter of some gra.s.s-tuft.”
Mr. c.o.c.kburn writes to me:--”I found a nest of this bird on the north bank of the Bramaputra, near Sadija. One of the birds darted off the nest a foot or two from me in an excited way, which led me to search.
The nest was almost a perfect oval, with a slice taken off at the top on one side, built in a clump of gra.s.s, and only 9 or 10 inches from the ground. It was made of sarpat-gra.s.s, and lined internally with finer gra.s.ses. The gra.s.s had a bleached and washed-out appearance, while the clump was quite green. This was on the 29th May. I noticed at the same time that the nest was not interwoven with the living gra.s.s. I removed it easily with the hand.”
Mr. Cripps says:--”They breed in April and May in the Dibrugarh district, placing their deep cup-shaped nests in tussocks of gra.s.s wherever it is swampy, in some instances the bottoms of the nests being wet. Four seems to be the greatest number of eggs in a nest.”
The eggs are much the same shape and size as those of _Acrocephalus stentoreus_. They have a dead-white ground, thickly speckled and spotted with blackish and purplish brown, and have but a slight gloss; the speckling, everywhere thick, is generally densest at the large end, and there chiefly do spots, as big as an ordinary pin's head, occur. At the large end, besides these specklings, there is a cloudy, dull, irregular cap, or else isolated patches, of very pale inky purple, which more or less obscure the ground-colour. In the peculiar speckly character of the markings these eggs recall doubtless some specimens of the eggs of the different Bulbuls, but their natural affinities seem to be with those of the _Acrocephalinae_.
The eggs vary from 08 to 097 in length, and from 061 to 069 in breadth; but the average of twelve eggs is 085 by 064.
390. Schoenicola platyura (Jerd.). _The Broad-tailed Gra.s.s-Warbler_.
Schoenicola platyura (_Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 73.
Colonel E.A. Butler discovered the nest of the Broad-tailed Gra.s.s-Warbler at Belgaum. He writes:--
”On the 1st September, 1880, I shot a pair of these birds as they rose out of some long gra.s.s by the side of a rice-field; and, thinking there might be a nest, I commenced a diligent search, which resulted in my finding one. It consisted of a good-sized ball of coa.r.s.e blades of dry gra.s.s, with an entrance on one side, and was built in long gra.s.s about a foot from the ground. Though it was apparently finished, there were unfortunately no eggs, but dissection of the hen proved that she would have laid in a day or two. On the 10th instant I found another nest exactly similar, built in a tussock of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s, near the same place; but this was subsequently deserted without the bird laying. On the 19th September I went in the early morning to the same patch of gra.s.s and watched another pair, soon seeing the hen disappear amongst some thick tussocks. On my approaching the spot she flew off the nest, which contained four eggs much incubated. The nest was precisely similar to the others, but with the entrance-hole perhaps rather nearer the top, though still on one side. The situation in the gra.s.s was the same--in fact it was very similar in every respect to the nest of _Drymoeca insignis_. The eggs are very like those of _Molpastes haemorrhous_, but smaller, having a purplish-white ground, sprinkled all over with numerous small specks and spots of purple and purplish brown, with a cap of the same at the large end, underlaid with inky lilac.
”These birds closely resemble _Chaetornis striatus_ in their actions and habits, and in the breeding-season rise constantly into the air, chirruping like that species, and descending afterwards in the same way on to some low bush or tussock of gra.s.s, sometimes even on to the telegraph-wires. They are fearful little skulks, however, if you attempt to pursue them, and the moment you approach disappear into the gra.s.s like a shot, from whence it is almost impossible to flush them again unless you all but tread on them. It is perfectly marvellous the way they will hide themselves in a patch of gra.s.s when they have once taken refuge in it; and although you may know within a yard or two of where the bird is, you may search for half an hour without finding it.
If you shoot at them and miss, they drop to the shot into the gra.s.s as if killed, and nothing will dissuade you from the belief that they are so until, after a long search, the little beast gets up exactly where you have been hunting all along, from almost under your feet, and darts off to disappear, after another short flight of fifteen or twenty yards, in another patch of gra.s.s, from whence you may again try in vain to dislodge it.”
The eggs of this species, though much smaller, are precisely of the same type as those of _Megalurus pal.u.s.tris_ and _Chaetornis striatus_; moderately broad ovals with a very fine compact sh.e.l.l, with but little gloss, though perhaps rather more of this than in either of the species above referred to. The ground-colour is white, with perhaps a faint pinkish shade, and it is profusely speckled and spotted with brownish red, almost black in some spots, more chestnut in others.
Here and there a few larger spots or small irregular blotches occur.
Besides these markings, clouds, streaks, and tiny spots of grey or lavender-grey occur, chiefly about the large end, where, with the markings (often more numerous there than elsewhere), they form at times a more or less confluent but irregular and ill-defined cap.
One egg measured 073 by 06.
391. Acanthoptila nepalensis (Hodgs.). _The Spiny Warbler_.
Acanthoptila nipalensis (_Hodgs.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p 57.
Acanthoptila pellotis, _Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 431 bis.
According to Mr. Hodgson's notes and figures, this species builds, in a fork of a tree, a very loose, shallow gra.s.s nest. One is recorded to have measured 487 in diameter and 175 in height externally, and internally 337 in diameter and an inch in depth. The eggs are verditer-blue, and are figured as 11 by 065.
I may here note that _Acanthoptila pellotis_ and _A. leucotis_ are totally distinct, as Mr. Hodgson's figures clearly show. Hodgson published _A. leucotis_ apparently under the name of _A. nipalensis_, so that the two will stand as _A. pellotis_ and _A. nipalensis_.[A]
[Footnote A: I do not agree with. Mr. Hume on this point. It seems to me that this bird has both a summer and a winter plumage, and Hodgson's two names refer to one and the same bird.--ED.]
392. Chaetornis locustelloides (Bl.). _The Bristled Gra.s.s-Warbler_.
Chaetornis striatus (_Jerd.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii. p. 72; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 441.
Dr. Jerdon remarks that Mr. Blyth mentions that the nest of the Gra.s.s-Babbler, as he calls it, nearly accords with that of _Malacocercus_, and that the eggs are blue.